SlowDriver wrote:
Not only have they been ignoring the requests from their customers, Leica additionally discontinued the APS-C CL (and the TL2), the only 2 lightweight L-mount cameras they had, and offered no FF solution whatsoever... Also, now you have the Hasselblad X2Dii which is lighter and cheaper than the Leica SL3... What is the purpose of the SL product line nowadays? It is the Leica video solution but is that sufficient to keep the product line going? I have my doubts...
Still upset at the TL2/CL discontinuation. It made we turn back to micro43 for compact primes and travel zoom lenses.
The M body sized Nikon ZR with its semi-stacked sensor and jumbo sized swivel screen, negating the need to rig out the camera, might be future for video.
However it will always hold that nothing beats the nostalgia and simplicity of using a MP and the classic 35/1.4.
I think that Leica has another problem: the M is nearly end of life. A 60 mp camera without IBIS is asking for trouble. The rangefinder, the summit of fine mechanical engineering, is prone to misalignment. Due to the technical complexity the M becomes (too) expensive to produce. If Leica where able to make a smallish 60 mp camera with more electronic parts like evf, IBIS and light interchangeable AF lenses they would have a camera fit for the longer term. In fact a Q or a smaller SL or a reworked M. My attraction to the M is the small overall form factor, the quality of the (small) lenses and the easy menus, but not its versatility. I think that a ‘new M’, Q or a smaller SL with M sized AF lenses would be an instant hit and easier to produce for an acceptable (but never cheap) price.
I am sure if Oscar Barnack lived now he would not have invented the current M11 camera.
DonaldM wrote:
I think that Leica has another problem: the M is nearly end of life. A 60 mp camera without IBIS is asking for trouble. The rangefinder, the summit of fine mechanical engineering, is prone to misalignment. Due to the technical complexity the M becomes (too) expensive to produce. If Leica where able to make a smallish 60 mp camera with more electronic parts like evf, IBIS and light interchangeable AF lenses they would have a camera fit for the longer term. In fact a Q or a smaller SL or a reworked M. My attraction to the M is the small overall form factor, the quality of the (small) lenses and the easy menus, but not its versatility. I think that a ‘new M’, Q or a smaller SL with M sized AF lenses would be an instant hit and easier to produce for an acceptable (but never cheap) price.
I am sure if Oscar Barnack lived now he would not have invented the current M11 camera. ...Show more →
Ironically the APS-C CL was touted at launch as the spiritual successor to Barnack’s camera.
DonaldM wrote:
the M is nearly end of life. A 60 mp camera without IBIS is asking for trouble.
And yet I manage to shoot sharp pictures with it.
DonaldM wrote:
The rangefinder, the summit of fine mechanical engineering, is prone to misalignment.
Is it? Mine is perfectly aligned, stays like this for a long time and I can realign it anywhere in a few minutes should I need too.
DonaldM wrote:
Due to the technical complexity the M becomes (too) expensive to produce.
This is interesting. So you have Leica internal figures and you know how much money they make or lose on each M sold?
Would you share?
DonaldM wrote:
I am sure if Oscar Barnack lived now he would not have invented the current M11 camera.
Why would he invent something that exist and is the last of a long serie?
One could say that the Wright brothers would not invent the Boeing 777 but is this really a point?
We will probably see a burgeoning of manual focus lenses once users see how enjoyable using MF lenses can be with a state-of-the-art EVF in a right-sized hand camera - being able to eradicate focus shift, see what the lens sees through its aperture range, sight the composition before and after shot time, refine and adjust settings and see how they impact the image (bokeh especially)..people will get to know their lenses far more intimately, actually seeing the differences for the first time, all at shot-time.
EVFs / manual focus lenses is an intoxicating combination and a highly pragmatic experience. Decent hand-holding technique will satisfy almost all users. The scope (use cases) for M cameras will expand greatly. We'll see renewed interest in short to medium telephotos, larger lens barrels. Many RF imposed constraints will be lifted. It's an exciting development.
philip_pj wrote:
We will probably see a burgeoning of manual focus lenses once users see how enjoyable using MF lenses can be with a state-of-the-art EVF in a right-sized hand camera - being able to eradicate focus shift, see what the lens sees through its aperture range, sight the composition before and after shot time, refine and adjust settings and see how they impact the image (bokeh especially)..people will get to know their lenses far more intimately, actually seeing the differences for the first time, all at shot-time.
EVFs / manual focus lenses is an intoxicating combination and a highly pragmatic experience. Decent hand-holding technique will satisfy almost all users. The scope (use cases) for M cameras will expand greatly. We'll see renewed interest in short to medium telephotos, larger lens barrels. Many RF imposed constraints will be lifted. It's an exciting development....Show more →
Your enthusiasm for this is laudable ... but, I think the nature of people falls into those who will embrace this (already may have to a degree) and those who are inherently lazy to the process of "thinking" as much as those who enjoy it, do. Burgeoning might be a romantic notion, full of enthusiasm, but I think it will mostly be a shift that occurs within those who are already bent that way ... moreover than creating a wave of new folks who embrace what we already know. A generation or two afterward, maybe, but I don't expect it to have that prolific an impact. A bump, sure ...but, the world will remain lazy, to a degree. Changing human nature isn't on my radar of expectation.
philip_pj wrote:
We will probably see a burgeoning of manual focus lenses once users see how enjoyable using MF lenses can be with a state-of-the-art EVF in a right-sized hand camera - being able to eradicate focus shift
I for one would like that.
philip_pj wrote:
see what the lens sees through its aperture range
Yes but how will I focus precisely with a M lens at f/8?
philip_pj wrote:
sight the composition before and after shot time
This is exactly what I do not want with a M. For this, I have excellent AF cameras, even small ones. But with a M, I compose the image in my mind entirely, I do not adjust it be in a viewfinder and I've discovered that my pictures are better this way.
philip_pj wrote:
refine and adjust settings and see how they impact the image (bokeh especially)..people will get to know their lenses far more intimately, actually seeing the differences for the first time, all at shot-time.
Once again, I can do this already but I hardly use it because seing a bokeh difference in an EVF is not that easy. Unless you are talking about depth of field instead?
In fact, I've been able to do this with any SLR and I bought my first one in 1981. Yet I bought a M in 1987 and I have been keeping one still. Maybe there is a reason.
But I admit I do not know my lenses intimately, i.e. I do not sleep with them. But maybe I'm too old?
What have being doing is shooting them and when I get a knew one, I review the files on my big, calibrated Eizo screen and I print them.
I found that I see how the lens draws much better at home with high quality enlarged pictures rather than in the field on a small screen while I tend to concentrate on shooting interesting pictures. This is a difficult task and I cannot do two things at once.
philip_pj wrote:
The scope (use cases) for M cameras will expand greatly
Yes, once again, I have had cameras with a much wider scope than the M since ever. I even started with them.
Right now, I have several at home, I use them. And I can have a excellent EVF, top level AF much better than anything I do manually, lenses going from 16 to 400mm in a package that is not really that much bigger or heavier than my M11 with a few lenses.
I like using it.
And yet, I found that almost all of my best pictures are shot with the M. In fact, the one I like the most over the last 5 years was even shot with a M5. I could even have been a M3, M2, M4 or any other M.
philip_pj wrote:
We will probably see a burgeoning of manual focus lenses once users see how enjoyable using MF lenses can be with a state-of-the-art EVF in a right-sized hand camera - being able to eradicate focus shift, see what the lens sees through its aperture range, sight the composition before and after shot time, refine and adjust settings and see how they impact the image (bokeh especially)..people will get to know their lenses far more intimately, actually seeing the differences for the first time, all at shot-time.
EVFs / manual focus lenses is an intoxicating combination and a highly pragmatic experience. Decent hand-holding technique will satisfy almost all users. The scope (use cases) for M cameras will expand greatly. We'll see renewed interest in short to medium telephotos, larger lens barrels. Many RF imposed constraints will be lifted. It's an exciting development....Show more →
I don’t see that at all. There are already many manual focus lenses available, esp from Voigtlander, for mirrorless cameras and they can be used on cameras with excellent EVFs, using precise modern MF and often those cameras are ergonomically better than an M. A new M at Leica price points is a tiny market addition.
That may be different if Leica drastically lowers the price of this camera. It’s not typical of Leica to do that, but it’s almost distasteful to think that them replacing the presumably hand-built complicated expensive rangefinder with a third-party EVF isn’t going to save them thousands in unit costs while retaining prices at or above the present level.
Leica should price this camera below $4000-5000, which would still be crazy high, but could open up a new market for them, like the Q did.
Leica is currently doing very well financially. That indicates to me that they know both their customers well and their company capabilities and position well. I see no indication that Leica is interested in joining the chase for profits through scale.
1bwana1 wrote:
Leica is currently doing very well financially. That indicates to me that they know both their customers well and their company capabilities and position well. I see no indication that Leica is interested in joining the chase for profits through scale.
Overall financial results give no visibility of ROI or year to year profitability of individual product lines : M and Q sales could be hiding massive losses on SL . The TL/CL line certainly upset the balance, so they dropped it.
KLaban wrote:
The only Leica introduction that would see me reaching for my wallet would be a true Q interchangeable lens model with a few compact AF lenses.
Indeed. My dream camera would either be:
- an Olympus Pen-F with the current OM-1 II viewfinder and sensor maybe with 30 or 40 Mpix but I can live with 20. And less buttons, something like a Leica or a Fuji X-E5.
- something like a Q interchangeable lenses, as small and lightweight as possible and supporting the M lenses with top of the line MF aids.
Like you, I think I'll wait. In the meantime, I'm quite happy with what I have and I've known for year that no extra gear will ever improve my pictures. This one is on me.
Reading all the above, and knowing myself after shooting Leica M for about a year, I would guess that people shooting M system have a different mind set than those shooting everything else, including M (or other MF) lenses on other (more complex) camera bodies. Shooting an M camera is a real joy (for many). Now the question is how much this new M-EV1 camera would alter off this joy (if any) and the balance of than joy altering vs focusing help that it would/might bring.
RustyBug wrote:
Your enthusiasm for this is laudable ... but, I think the nature of people falls into those who will embrace this (already may have to a degree) and those who are inherently lazy to the process of "thinking" as much as those who enjoy it, do. Burgeoning might be a romantic notion, full of enthusiasm, but I think it will mostly be a shift that occurs within those who are already bent that way ... moreover than creating a wave of new folks who embrace what we already know. A generation or two afterward, maybe, but I don't expect it to have that prolific an impact. A bump, sure ...but, the world will remain lazy, to a degree. Changing human nature isn't on my radar of expectation....Show more →
Reminds me on the discussion we had > 10 years ago here on FM how high res / high DR FF sensors will perform in the market. I predicted rightfully so that the industry will move towards this kind of high resolution sensors. When Canon was still stuck with 22 MP FF sensors, many from this camp at the time severely disagreed and what Sony was doing. We all know what the outcome was.
Similar here: I agree with @philip_pj that this EVF-based M camera will likely open new frontiers. Most critical for me - having used M-lenses extensively on older EVF-based mirrorless FF cameras successfully - is what kind of focus system(s) this camera will offer in the end. I hope it is better than the common focus peaking/magnification tools which are often slower than rangefinder based focusing (one reason why I moved to Leica M).
catacore wrote:
Reading all the above, and knowing myself after shooting Leica M for about a year, I would guess that people shooting M system have a different mind set than those shooting everything else, including M (or other MF) lenses on other (more complex) camera bodies. Shooting an M camera is a real joy (for many). Now the question is how much this new M-EV1 camera would alter off this joy (if any) and the balance of than joy altering vs focusing help that it would/might bring.
I think one of the main drivers of a creating an "EV1" product is to extend the M experience for eyesight that may have aged-out or otherwise, of the ability to focus reliably with the rangefinder patch. Considering the Leica demographic, I think this could be a significant product development for customers or potential new customers that have been otherwise sitting on the sideline or instead buying into other camera brands/systems.
LBJ2 wrote:
I think one of the main drivers of a creating an "EV1" product is to extend the M experience for eyesight that may have aged-out or otherwise, of the ability to focus reliably with the rangefinder patch. Considering the Leica demographic, I think this could be a significant product development for customers or potential new customers that have been otherwise sitting on the sideline or instead buying into other camera brands/systems.
Yes, but it needs to remain an "M" camera, with one SS dial, one ISO dial and (as rumored) the frame lines lever as a quick Fn button (for magnifying the EVF image, maybe). No flip screens, no other buttons, nothing. Just "Der Wesentliche". So, an M11 with EVF instead of OVF/rangefinder.
As someone said above, maybe the M11 is end of the "Messsucher" cameras. Without IBIS they can't increase the MPx, so there is nothing they can add up for the M12.
johnvanr wrote:
I don’t see that at all. There are already many manual focus lenses available, esp from Voigtlander, for mirrorless cameras and they can be used on cameras with excellent EVFs, using precise modern MF and often those cameras are ergonomically better than an M. A new M at Leica price points is a tiny market addition.
That may be different if Leica drastically lowers the price of this camera. It’s not typical of Leica to do that, but it’s almost distasteful to think that them replacing the presumably hand-built complicated expensive rangefinder with a third-party EVF isn’t going to save them thousands in unit costs while retaining prices at or above the present level.
Leica should price this camera below $4000-5000, which would still be crazy high, but could open up a new market for them, like the Q did. ...Show more →
Leica setup their stores next to Hermes and Louis Vuitton when they have a chance. If anything, they’ll double down on making even more expensive stuff.
olegkin wrote:
Leica setup their stores next to Hermes and Louis Vuitton when they have a chance. If anything, they’ll double down on making even more expensive stuff.
Yup, Leica in Busan South Korea shares a wall with the local Ferrari dealership. Is Leica an engineering driven company, or is it driven by marketing. I think that it has been many decades since Leica has been at the engineering “tip of the spear” and regarding marketing, you want to maintain some degree of luster, so best provide nice packaging and keep prices high. Let the secondary market take care of those that can’t buy new.
bwcolor wrote:
Yup, Leica in Busan South Korea shares a wall with the local Ferrari dealership. Is Leica an engineering driven company, or is it driven by marketing. I think that it has been many decades since Leica has been at the engineering “tip of the spear” and regarding marketing, you want to maintain some degree of luster, so best provide nice packaging and keep prices high. Let the secondary market take care of those that can’t buy new.
+1. I believe Leica has one of the largest secondary (used gear) market of all camera brands. Problem here: even used M lens and camera gear goes for very high numbers these days and takes a much longer time for M camera prices to come down. For example a M10-R still goes for > $6500 which is IMO very high for the time the camera has been on the primary market.
catacore wrote:
Yes, but it needs to remain an "M" camera, with one SS dial, one ISO dial and (as rumored) the frame lines lever as a quick Fn button (for magnifying the EVF image, maybe). No flip screens, no other buttons, nothing. Just "Der Wesentliche". So, an M11 with EVF instead of OVF/rangefinder.
As someone said above, maybe the M11 is end of the "Messsucher" cameras. Without IBIS they can't increase the MPx, so there is nothing they can add up for the M12.
I am not a potential customer, However if I were, my preference would also be M11 EV1, not necessarily a Q body. With that said, if Leica did go the Q form factor route I can't wait to hear/read the interviews on why Leica decided to go Q form factor instead of the M11.
... but, I think the nature of people falls into those who will embrace this (already may have to a degree) and those who are inherently lazy to the process of "thinking" as much as those who enjoy it, do. Burgeoning might be a romantic notion, full of enthusiasm, but I think it will mostly be a shift that occurs within those who are already bent that way ... moreover than creating a wave of new folks who embrace what we already know. A generation or two afterward, maybe, but I don't expect it to have that prolific an impact. A bump, sure ...but, the world will remain lazy, to a degree. Changing human nature isn't on my radar of expectation.